The project was proposed by Jef Raskin some time before
Steve Jobs's famous visit to Xerox PARC. Jobs tried to
scuttle the Macintosh project and only joined it later because
he wasn't trusted to manage the Lisa project.

The first Macintosh, introduced in January 1984, had a
Motorola 68000CPU, 128K of RAM, a small monochrome
screen, and one built-in floppy disk drive with an external
slot for one more, two serial ports and a four-voice sound
generator. This was all housed in one small plastic case,
including the screen. When more memory was available later in
the year, a 512K Macintosh was nicknamed the "Fat Mac."

In 1994 PowerPC based Macs, Power Macs, were launched, and
in 1999, the iMac, updated on 2002-01-07. The Power Mac G4
(Quicksilver 2002) was the first Power Mac to clock at 1GHz and
"Superdrives" (combined DVD-ROM, DVD-RW, CD-ROM, CD-RW)
appeared in the iMac in 2002. In mid 2003 the first G5
Power Mac was released, the first Mac to be based on a 64-bit
architecture. IBM and not Motorola manufactured the CPU for
this new generation of Power Macs. The clock speed was
initially 1.6GHz but a dual 2GHz system was available in
September.

Mac OS X is the successor to Mac OS 9, although its
technological parent is the NEXTSTEP OS from Next, Inc.,
founded by Steve Jobs after he left Apple the first time. OS
X is based largely on the BSD UNIX system. The core of the
OS X operating system is released as free source code under
the project name Darwin.

If "Macintosh" were an acronym, some say it would stand for
"Many Applications Crash, If Not, The Operating System Hangs".
While this was true for pre Mac OS 9 systems, it is less true
for Mac OS 9, and totally incorrect for Mac OS X, which has
protected memory, so even if one application crashes, the
system and other applications are unaffected.

Macintosh

A family of desktop and laptop computers from Apple, introduced in 1984. First to popularize the graphical user interface (GUI), the combination of Mac hardware and software has provided an ease of use that users have very much enjoyed over the years.

It has essentially been a Mac vs. Windows world for personal computers. However, Google's Chrome computer has gained ground in the education market (see Chromebook). See Windows vs. Mac.

Because Macintoshes were commonly called "Macs," Apple later changed the brand officially to "Mac." For an overview of the line, see Macintosh models. To learn about the Mac's origins, see Macintosh history.

Hardware Evolution The first Macs were powered by Motorola's 32-bit 68K family of CPUs. In 1994, Apple introduced the Power Macs, which used the higher-performance PowerPC chip designed by Apple, Motorola and IBM. Power Macs ran native PowerPC applications and emulated traditional Mac 68K applications. Over the years, PowerPC chips provided substantial increases in performance.

With one floppy disk, 128KB of RAM and built-in 9" screen, the "high-rise" Macintosh was a departure from the very successful Apple II. After switching to traditional desktop cases in the 1990s, Apple later revived its flair for unique design (see iMac). (Image courtesy of Apple Inc.)

Always the Innovator

Apple has created many original designs. This PowerBook in 2001 was the first laptop with a wide screen and titanium body.

Microsoft agreed to release versions of its popular Office software for businesses in Macintosh formats, and Apple said it would make Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser the easiest choice for accessing the Internet from a Macintosh-based computer.

Focused on high-quality Macintosh consulting, the service is staffed by hand-selected industry veteran experts who use a combination of technology including phone, email and web-enabled, remote control software to fix any Macintosh or third-party software problem.

All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.